Comments

Comment by Rankkor

Tanking stance for the monks.

Increases the chance to stagger which is a unique form of mitigation exclusive to the monk.

Time will tell just how effective this is, I find it odd that it doesn't have any armor bonuses at all. Monks could end up being far too squishy unless the synergy of their other skills balances their lack of high armor.

Comment by iamleejn

When you stance dance as a monk, you can only retain 1 chi.

Comment by Joejr82

Stagger while an interesting mechanic i can see many tank deaths happen because of it.

Comment by 0j0n

Does this increase Threat?

Comment by seahen

Additional effect: you generate 7x as much threat (proof: effect #6 above is the same as effect #5 of Veteran of the Third War). Multiplicative with your DPS and with "generates lots of threat" abilities. (IMO calling aura 127 just "Mod Threat" is misleading, since it won't affect your existing threat or decouple your threat generation from your DPS.)

Comment by TheDancingTree

The stance of a monk who defends his allies and keeps them safe from harm. While this stance is active, the character seems to take on a defensive fighting pose with a mocking grin, ready to taunt his enemies.

When activated, the sound of an ox roaring can be heard.

EDIT: Just for reference, this comment was made when this page was the tanking stance, "Stance of the Sturdy Ox".

Comment by McLockhart

The tanking stance of the Monk class, only available if you specialize as a Brewmaster. This means that you're not able to go into this stance if you're specialized as a Mistweaver or Windwalker.

Below I've tried to sum up the importance and benefits of stagger damage as a Monk tank to give players an insight in the usefulness of a Monk tank in the raid.

The basics of tanking and avoidanceMonk tanks may, just as Death Knights, Paladins and Warriors, dodge and parry attacks from say a raid boss. But between the dodges and parrys you're going to get hit by the boss once in a while.The tanking spec for the Monk class is the Brewmaster specialization and upon selecting this specialization you're granted the Stagger.As the tooltip states you're with this stance able to stagger damage, a mechanic unique to the Monk class. Initially you're able to stagger 20 % of the damage you take. This means that the damage you would recieve after armor mitigation as well as the -25 % damage taken is going to be staggered. An example of this would be a boss which has an attack that hits for 133,333 physical damage. Let us assume that your armour mitigates 30 % of this and the Stagger reduces it even further down to 100,000 damage that goes through your armour and other mitigation effects (assuming you do not have any shield on you, such as Guard.)(133,333 damage * (1.00 - 0.30) * (1.00 - 0.25) = 100,000 damage)

Stagger damageNow, this 100,000 damage would hit a normal tank for this amount instantly, but unlike any other class, Monks will stagger this damage. Stagger damage will take an x percentage of the damage you would receive instantly and make this x percent do damage to you over time, specifically 10 seconds, rather than instantly. This means that the Monk tank in the case of 100,000 damage taken directly only would receive 80,000 damage instantly and the rest of the 20,000 damage would occur over the next 10 seconds, if all he has is Stagger.(100,000 damage * 0.8 = 80,000 damage)

Improving stagger damageThis stagger damage is initially 20 % of all your damage taken due to Stagger. This can be improved by two abilities that you'll come to posses. The first being Blackout Kick when you learn which will provide you with the buff , causing you to stagger an additional 20 % damage. This means that the 80,000 damage you would receive with only having Stagger active will be reduced by an additional 20 %, down to 60,000 damage taken instantly and the 40,000 damage taken over the next 10 seconds.(100,000 damage * 0,6 = 60,000 damage)

The second ability you'll learn is called Fortifying Brew which will improve your stagger damage by yet another 20 % when you learn . Combined with Stagger and you'll find yourself staggering 60 % of all your taken damage. This means that of the original 100,000 damage you would take as normal tanks, only 40 % of it is instant. The rest will be dealt to you over the next 10 seconds.

Why is this important?Well why IS it important? The stagger damage is just gonna renew itself to a bigger stagger each time you're dealt damage. So why is this good for us?

There are two answers to this question. First of all, raiding is all about stability. And if a boss would usually kill a tank with a move because the damage it great and instant, your healers can't really do much about it except using their cooldowns to save you. But as a Brewmaster Monk you'll be able to take the full blow and live to tell the tale, at least for the next 10 seconds. The stagger damage will give your healers a reasonable amount of damage they can heal over time and thus will be able to hopefully save their cooldowns for another time.

The second, and perhaps better answer, is Purifying Brew.Using Purifying Brew you're able to clear all the damage you have staggered over the fight. You're simply removing it. No buts, no "what if"s and so on. This very ability allows you to soak huge amounts of damage, take a fraction of it and just purify it yourself. This is the essence of Monk tanking. Balancing out when to purify the damage is the bigger question but this would probably depend on playstyle and preference.

Take the previous 100,000 damage you've been reading about. Let us assume you have Stagger, and Fortifying Brew you're up to 60 % stagger damage, meaning that from the previous 100,000 damage you would take, only 40,000 damage is dealt to you. The rest can be purified immediately using Purifying Brew.(Yes I know I haven't factored in the 20 % damage reduction from Fortifying Brew. I was trying to keep the math and introduction simple)

Comment by Zenanii

It is worth noticing that stagger damage can NOT be lethal. You will simply be reduced to 1hp as the stagger keeps ticking.

Comment by HelloKitty

According to my current (post-5.2 Mastery Buff) numbers, it seems it's possible to just-about-reach 30% Mastery from gear. That brings default stagger up to 50%. The T15 2-piece allows for upwards of 30% uptime of 12% additional stagger if specced this way, and Delicate Vial of the Sanguinaire allows for up to 30% additional stagger in any heavy-aoe scenario (think: wind-lord-esque, challenge modes, etc). That is 80% stagger (92% when T15 2-piece is active), 100%-112% when fortifying brew is active. This is made more viable by the T15 4-piece causing our purifying brew to frequently cost no Chi, which is what makes this build somewhat viable: you won't need as much chi for shuffle since you almost won't need it for anything else, including Guard.

That aside, I still roll with haste/crit to ensure 50% uptime of elusive brew and 50% uptime of the +12% stagger.

Under normal raid environments, though, you can expect to have a good 10% passive stagger from mastery (5% base, ~2% more from just bs mastery on your gear that you couldn't get rid of, 3% more from blessing of might). That lends itself to 50% total (20% base, 20% shuffle, 10% mastery) with 50% uptime of the T15 12% increase.

To understand how effective Stagger is at higher levels you must simply realize that it stacks additively. That means that, at 60% stagger (for example - a realistic number for many T15 geared brewmasters esp. while the 2-piece is active), 20% more from fortifying brew brings you up to 80% stagger. This means that a hit for 1 million would hit for 200k instead of 400k (and you'd be staggering an extra 200k, but you'd likely purify the majority of this). That means that 20% more stagger on top of 60% base stagger is as good as 50% mitigation in the eyes of a healer.

If you ever felt invincible with Fortifying Brew up, that's why.

Comment by Kamineko

I don't know about other races, but the Pandaren male raises his right eyebrow and smiles slightly.

I wish there was a glyph to maintain this animation indefinitely while out of combat... It would be fun. :(

Comment by YushinoPheles

In 6.0 This stance will grant an additional 50% armor, and 10% magic damage reduction, but seems to no longer reduce all damage by 25%.

Comment by Casn

As of patch 6.0, is supposedly integrated into Ox Stance, per stance description ad fact that is no longer visible in Spellbook. However, despite supposedly being part of stance, it does not activate untill lvl 34.By description, it's also supposed to modify Expel Harm, and if you cross your eyes and squint it kind of does, since it's only stance avaible to Brewmasters, and for Brewmasters Expel Harm does work a little differently.No idea what's it's effect on Jab supposed to be (reduced GCD, like on almost all skills?).EDIT: Around patch 6.1 was changed to require lvl10, so affected skills are indeed altered at the smae time you have Ox Stance active.